Trades: Hope for now, talent for later

I want to get back to the Murray Chass article. He accuses the Pirates of trading in order to dump money rather than build the franchise. That is simple ridiculous. He deals mostly with the Morgan-Burnett deal, which I have already dealt with in another article. What Chass fails to see is the way these trades are operating. Almost every trade has two components to it: hope for the present and talent for the long term. In other words the Pirates would receive an almost ready for big leagues player who has some hope of being good, but far from a sure thing as well as a real talent in the lower minor leagues. Chass wants benefit for right now, but the Pirates are building an organization not just a major league team. The two exceptions to this rule are the aforementioned deal with the Nationals involving Morgan and the Freddy Sanchez deal to the Giants for Double A pitching prospect who even in conservative estimates will be a end of the rotation major league pitcher.

The others are easily seen. First take a look at the Nate McClouth deal. McClouth was sent to the Braves for Charlie Morton, a hope now, but then adding Gorky Hernandez, a talent for the future.

Eric Hinske was traded next for a talent for the future: Casey Erickson a pitcher and Eric Fryer a catcher/outfielder. Hinske had no place with the Pirates. Getting two players for him is a major coup even if the Pirates never play them in the big leagues.

Adam LaRoche was traded for Argenis Diaz is the hope for now, or close to now at least, and Hunter Strickland is the talent for the low minors. LaRoche is a low value so the overall value received may not be that high in this deal.

Ian Snell and Jack Wilson were traded to the Mariners for Ronny Cedeno (who is a place holder) and Jeff Clement is the hope for now. The real meat of the deal was the three minor league pitchers: Pribonic, Lorin, and Adcock. They are the talent for the future. Snell by the way had proved he was not going to make it with the Pirates.

Next was the Cubs deal where Gorzelanny and Grabow were traded for Kevin Hart the hope for now and Jose Ascino and Josh Harrison as the talent for the future. This deal did not draw ire from Chass even though it hurt the Pirates much more than the Milledge deal. Losing Grabow killed the bullpen. But the hope in Hart is higher than most.

The amount of talent the Pirates received this year is amazing. The Pirates really did build an organization this year. The organization is much stronger even if this round of trades weakened the major league Pirates for the rest of the year. Chass needs to admit that there is a clear cut method to the trading madness of the Pittsburgh Front Office.